Annotation:Mr. Isaac’s Maggot
Tune properties and standard notation
MR. ISAAC'S MAGGOT. English, Country Dance Tune (3/2 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Issac (c. 1640-c. 1720) was a court dancing master whose hey-day was in the late 17th century, a younger contemporary of John Playford. He has been credited with introducing English country dancing to the court of Louis XIV in France, and he taught Queen Anne as a young princess. Around the year 1702 he became the unofficial royal dancing master. Along with another dancing master named Beveridge, Isaac devised maggots, or distinctive longways country dances often set to triple-time hornpipe tunes and dedicated to a personage. The Richmond, for example, was a ball dance for the court intended to honor the Duke of Richmond, and was first published in 1706 (the music for which was a triple-time hornpipe).
A maggot was another name for a dram, a unit of liquid measure, and also meant a small thing of little consequence or a plaything, from the Italian maggioletta (Emmerson, 1972). This anonymous melody dates to 1695.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Barnes (English Country Dance Tunes), 1986. Sharp (Country Dance Tunes), 1909; p. 51.
Recorded sources: Harmonia Mundi 907101, The King's Noyse - "The King's Delight: 17c Ballads for Voice and Violin Band" (1992).
See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]